This is the story of a small spider in my garden. It being a cloudy and rainy morning, I grabbed my camera and headed for the yard. When it’s wet outside, colors pop and raindrops pearl on flowers and foliage—a gorgeous sight. But I only got as far as the sole remaining bloom on a Hybrid Tea Rose “Perfume Delight,” because I discovered that a small but industrious spider had established a new home there.
For perspective, see the lone bloom below (amid some Montauk Daisies), and a close-up of the spider on it.
It’s hard to see, but for a good part of the morning, that spider was busy making silk threads; the first photo below shows a thread at top left, and the other is a not-very good photo of the spider spinning (I managed to focus on the thread and a few rain drops, but alas, not on the spider…).
That rose bloom wasn’t there a couple weeks ago. The spider could only have happened upon it recently, not knowing it had chosen an ever-evolving and ultimately doomed home. Even in the few hours between this morning and this afternoon, the rose bloom unfurled a bit more, breaking some of the spider’s newly spun threads. In a couple weeks, the bloom won’t be there at all. And yet, the spider remains, a Don Quixote in disguise.
Perennial Pastimes 